Contact Group to meet after Normandy format talks

Normandy Four members said they held a "very constructive" dialogue and agreed on several important peaceful settlement issues

Share

1 pages in this article

KIEV, June 13. /TASS/. Representatives of Kiev, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), Russia and the Donbass republics will hold another Contact Group meeting on the settlement in eastern Ukraine on Wednesday in the wake of the Normandy Four ministerial meeting, which ended on Tuesday night. The top French, German, Russian and Ukrainian diplomats discussed at a meeting in Berlin the possible UN mission in Donbass, humanitarian issues along with security issues and the implementation of the "Steinmeier formula."

Useful meeting in Berlin

Normandy Four members said they held a "very constructive" dialogue and agreed on several important peaceful settlement issues.

According to Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, the meeting was very useful, although the parties failed to resolve all problems. He stressed though that the ministers "once again looked at the overall situation - in the sphere of security, political reforms, economy and humanitarian issues." Russia’s top diplomat noted that they also reaffirmed the inviolability of the Minsk agreements.

Minsk vs Normandy Four

A few days before the "Normandy Four" meeting, Ukrainian President Pyotr Poroshenko said there is no Minsk negotiation format for Kiev, while there is only the Normandy format, which called into question Ukraine’s willingness to comply with the Minsk accords.

The Donbass republics saw that statement as Poroshenko’s refusal to abide by his international obligations. According to envoy of the self-proclaimed Lugansk People’s Republic (LPR) Rodion Miroshnik, "the existence of the (Minsk format) Contact Group, which includes the OSCE, Russia, Ukraine, LPR and DPR, has been enshrined in the Packaged of Measures for the Implementation of the Minsk Agreements signed by Leonid Kuchma on instructions from Poroshenko." "And Poroshenko himself signed the Declaration in Support of the Package of Measures for the Implementation of the Minsk Agreements approved in Minsk on February 12, 2015, which states, ‘The leaders will continue to be committed to the implementation of the Minsk agreements," the LPR envoy stressed.